Her Brother's Keeper: A Story of Alpha Centauri
Prologue

Colonial Year 71; 57 Terran years after the Founding

Three individuals sat around a plastic conference table in a small office aboard the starship Hope.

All of them wore the utilitarian jumpsuit-like uniform of His Majesty’s Royal Space Forces.

Of the people present, two were visibly upset. They both had expressions of disbelief. Meanwhile, the third individual simply looked mildly surprised.

“How could this have happened so quickly? The colony was just founded sixty years ago,” said the one female in the room. Her voice was full of the bewilderment that her face so eloquently conveyed.

“I can’t believe it either,” responded the dark-haired man. As he spoke, he glued his eyes upon the portable in his right hand. The device was displaying the latest report from the surface.

The blonde-haired male was also reading the information on his own handheld computer. There was a slight grin on his face as he scrutinized the document. “I must admit that I did not see this coming,” he commented, his eyes never leaving the display.

“Even after the string of incidents described here, this entire thing seems like it quickly got out of control,” the dark-haired female said. She too was perusing the disturbing report, although she was using the holoprojector built into the conference table and not her portable. Text floated in the air in front of her, a slight hand wave causing the pages to progress as she read them.

“Now you see why I called this meeting,” the blonde officer admitted. “I am trying to determine the best course of action for the good of both the first and second groups of colonists.”

“I can’t imagine any of our passengers agreeing to these bizarre laws,” the dark-haired man stated. “They are just so different from the ones in the Sol system. They’ll cause friction from the moment they step on world.”

“What if we separate them?” the woman suggested. “If we settle this group in the other hemisphere, then the colonies will operate independently from each other.”

The blonde-haired man raised his eyes from his screen. “That is not a good idea. In the first year alone, there were three deaths while they were attempting to establish a foothold. Two of those could have been completely prevented if the original settlers had had access to pre-made carbon dioxide impermeable materials. Why they let a male go on a prospecting trip is something we will never know.”

“The third death,” he continued, “was because of a farming accident caused by hastily built and faulty machinery. Most likely they could have prevented this if they weren’t rushing to grow crops as quickly as possible before their rations ran out. After all, the GERD ’cycler that they had would only last so long under constant use.”

When that was said, the young woman visibly shivered. “Even if it is chemically changed into a nutritious and calorie-rich food source, that stuff is still gross. Tofu has more flavor. Plus, it’s made of the colonists’ poop. I’d be in a hurry to grow crops without the risk of starvation if it meant I wouldn’t have to eat GERD every day.”

The other two chuckled slightly at her attempt to lighten the mood of the gloomy room.

“So you are implying that the new colony would gain a much earlier and firmer foothold if they could get supplies from the first one,” the taller male suggested.

“Yes, they will need goods from the old settlement and can trade using any local mineral resources that they might find. It would also help both groups to grow. That was the original plan if the initial colony survived wasn’t it?” the blonde man pointed out.

“Then how about here,” the woman suggested. After a complicated set of gestures, the document disappeared and was replaced by a high-resolution globe. “This area offers a unique blend of potentially arable land and mineral resources. It is also on the opposite side of the continent from Cooper’s Landing and roughly a thousand kilometers from the nearest existing outpost. Plus, since it’s at the mouth of a river, it has easy access to fresh water and the flowing liquid could act as a source of hydroelectric power. If I recall properly, they seriously considered this site for the first settlement.”

“That might work,” the dark-haired man replied thoughtfully. “The question is, will it be close enough for regular trade to take place between both locations?”

“Oh, I think it’s possible,” the other man answered. “We’ll have the shuttles ferry goods back and forth in the beginning. In the meantime, we can have both sides construct a railroad. It wouldn’t require much effort to use one of the extra micro-fusion reactors in a train engine and have it move freight across the continent. We could even discourage travel by only having open, unfiltered cargo cars. Who would want to spend a week straight wearing a mask with no breaks?”

“I still don’t understand why they did it,” the woman commented. “I realize that having four out of a hundred and twenty men die because of accidents in the first five years was tragic, but why go this far?”

“I believe they were just trying to protect them,” the taller male replied. “They only made up a tenth of the colonists after all. Without them, it would mean the demise of the colony if something also happened to the reproduction labs.”

“I understand that,” the woman retorted. “So why not simply forbid them from doing certain risky jobs?”

“If you read to the end of the report, it mentions that they tried that, but most men ignored the regulations,” the blonde man interjected. “By Colonial Year fifteen a tenth of the male colonists had passed on because of accidents and the resulting injuries.”

“That’s a lot of deaths,” the woman agreed, “but they shouldn’t have stripped the men of all human rights to save them from themselves!”

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